Red Delicious(15)

His voice was cool as vanilla ice cream, not the least trace of concern, taunting me. Egging me on. My hand was beginning to shake, but I pressed the 9mm still harder against his forehead.

"You're a liar," I said.

"Pot calling the kettle, sweets. Regardless, bad idea, kiddo. Trust me." And he pointed at the pistol with the index finger of his right hand. "‘But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur . . .' That's Revelation 21:8, kitten."

All junkies are liars. Even the dead ones.

This is the golden rule of addicts.

"Isn't there some sort of holy cosmic law against worms like you quoting scripture?"

"Haven't been struck by lightning yet," he replied, glancing at the ceiling of the bar, as if looking heavenward for confirmation. "But, Quinn, rest assured, not only did I have no hand in . . . whatever happened to you . . . if you've gone and made someone keen to kill, well, I'm the last man you want to put in his narrow house."

"I don't believe you," I said, "and your brains would look awful nice spattered all over the wall."

Bailoch sighed. "And this is exactly why you're not an interior decorator, if you've ever wondered." He furrowed his brow and sat up a bit straighter, so I was thinking maybe I'd at least made him a tad or so less sure of himself. He carefully balanced his Nat Sherman on the rim of the ashtray, then looked me in the eye. Have I ever mentioned that his eyes are gray? Well, they are. Still, point is, for all his associations with the nasties, B is as mortal as they come. I'd been around long enough to figure out that much.

He sighed again, a sigh that was the very essence of having come to the end of his rope. "This is getting boring." That's when I squeezed the trigger. The Glock 17 clicked, empty as fuck. B opened his left hand, and ten bullets rolled across the table. Their shiny copper-wash jackets glinted in the dim light above the booth.

He picked up one of the shells. "Commodious spot of legerdemain Ol' Drusneth taught me a few years back. Nice, yes? Tiptop. Now, please, put away the pocket rocket."

"Dirty pool," I muttered, lowering the Glock, slipping the useless gun back into its holster.

"Only sort worth playing. Though, a fact you may not know, snooker's more my style."

"You really didn't send the gaunt?"

B rubbed at the circular red indentation the Glock had left there above the bridge of his nose. "Have I not already answered that question to your satisfaction?" He retrieved his cigarette from the ashtray, and the smoke coiled into a tidy question mark above his head. "Where's the percentage, my having you killed? You're my best girl. I'm insulted, I am."

"You'll get over it."

He stopped rubbing at his face. "I was about to ring you when you came sauntering in, looking like the ragged end of a puppy's favorite chew toy. There's been an interesting new development in the Maidstone case."

I finished my beer. "Someone found Amity?" I asked. The way we'd fallen back into the usual rhythm of our frequent conversations, you'd never know I'd tried to pop him only a minute or so before.

"Alas, no. But recall the rumor I mentioned, the one came my way from Manhattan?"

"You mentioned it, yeah." My neglected stomach rumbled, reminding me of the lost meal.                       
       
           



       

"It has proven to be more than idle gossip. It has proven to be, I think, a common motive linking disparate elements into a single-"

"You will eventually come to the point, I trust." I ran my fingers through my hair, which was sticky and matted with blood. I found something sharp and hard in my bangs. A tiny shard of bone that had been a piece of my skull before the gaunt threw me into that concrete column. I dropped it on the table, and Mean Mr. B made his disgusted face.

"Quinn," he continued, "I admit I'm playing a hunch, and you'll please keep that in mind. But I believe Berenice Maidstone coming to me has nothing to do with a missing sister. I suspect both sisters are trying to use us-first Lashly, then you-to help them recover an extraordinary artifact." He took a drag on his cigarette, which he'd smoked down to the filter, then crushed the butt out in the ashtray and lit another.

"Okay, then why not be up-front about it? Why go to the trouble to bullshit us?"

He watched me a moment, almost as though he were trying to decide whether or not I could be trusted with the answer. Asshole. "Because, precious, they're after something that individuals considerably more formidable are also after."

"And who would those more formidable individuals be?"

"Would you like another beer?" he asked, then motioned to the bartender. He held up two fingers. Peace out. V for victory.

"Sure. Now, Bailoch, kindly fucking tell me what you're talking about."

Another bottle of Narragansett arrived, along with a fresh Cape Cod for B. When we were alone again, Mean Mr. B said, "Our Grand Dame Drusneth, for one. Which explains why she made you feel less than welcome yesterday."

"For another?"

"For another, another madam of the demonic persuasion, a certain Yeksabet Harpootlian."

I picked up the bottle, but my stomach rolled at the very thought of more beer, so I set it back down again. "Harpootlian? Even for a succubus, that's a hell of a name," I said. "No pun intended."

"That it is," said B. "If my hunch is complete in all its twists and turns-and at present I suppose it is-Harpootlian was the one had poor Mr. Lashly killed. Neither she nor Drusneth would be happy about the emergence of a third interested party."

"Why would Amity and Berenice go up against heavy hitters? They're just kids. Sure, they're Edgar Maidstone's daughters, but when did being the privileged, trust-fund brats of a local necromancer make anyone believe they could get involved in a tussle between demon whorehouses and come out in one piece?"

"How often, dear, have you reminded me of the supreme stupidity of the human race?" B waved a hand at the bone shard on the table. "Will you please remove that from view," he said.

I wiped it off onto the floor.

"If I am correct, the sisters-wishing to gain greater noteworthiness and power within their family-see the object as a shortcut to ascendancy."

"So," I said, "here's my next stupid question. What the fuck is this piece of junk they're all fighting over?"

He reached for something on the booth beside him, then pushed it across the table towards me. It was a very old pulp magazine tucked inside a plastic bag, the sort comic nerds use to keep their funny books in pristine condition. Weird Tales, October 1935, twenty-five cents. The cover was a garish scene of human sacrifice . . . or something of the sort. It was as vague as it was garish. But there were menacing figures in red robes gathered about what appeared to be an altar, where a woman in peril lay helpless and, no surprise, completely naked. The cover promised stories by Robert E. Howard, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Bloch, and a fourth person I'd never heard of, someone named Mona Q. Mars.

"What's the hell's this?" I asked, turning the magazine over, like maybe the answer to my question was printed on the back.

"That's a magazine."

"Fuck you. I mean-"

"You want to know what I believe Drusneth, the Maidstone sisters, and this Harpootlian are chasing, the most efficacious response is to be found within the pages of that fine publication."

"An old issue of Weird Tales?"

"I'm quite sure that's what I just said." Mean Mr. B sipped his cocktail and watched me over the rim of the martini glass.

"You can't just tell me?"

"Of course I could. But this way's more fun. On page thirty-two, you'll find a story by a woman who wrote under the nom de plume Mona Mars."

"Her name's on the cover."

My stomach made a noise like a tiny earthquake.

"Very observant, Quinn. The story's called ‘The Maltese Unicorn.'"

"You're shitting me." I might have laughed. Probably not, though. I was hardly in the laughing mood.

"No. And there's a twist. That magazine wasn't produced in our reality, but in an alternate universe that occasionally bumps up against ours. Mona Mars, or I should say, the woman writing as Mona Mars, never existed in this world. Some things have counterparts, others don't. In 1935 the venerable Weird Tales did. Mona Mars didn't."

I didn't bother asking how he'd gotten hold of a magazine from a parallel universe. You hear enough of this bizarre crap, you stop bothering to be astounded. In only six months, I'd heard plenty enough and spare change.

"I hate homework," I told him.

"Indulge me. It's actually not such a bad tale. True, a tad purple and overwrought at times, but not such a bad tale. Also, it involves ladies of the lesbian persuasion, which will undoubtedly appeal to you."

I was tired. Most of my body throbbed to one degree or another. And I was starving. I picked up the magazine and left him sitting there. I grabbed a quick bite in an alley off Thayer Street. Then I went home, took a long scalding shower, and read the story. B was right. Much fucking easier to get a handle on the whole mess if you start off by reading the story, instead of being lazy and listening to someone attempt to sum it up. So I'm following his example (which, by the way, almost never happens). Besides, I think it's a pretty good yarn, all on its own. Now, there will, of course, be those readers who complain that by sticking Ms. Mars' story in here, I'm yanking them out of the book.